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Five Thoughts: The strange twists and turns of Game 5 between Boston and Tampa Bay

Tampa Bay Lightning v Boston Bruins - Game Five

in Game Five of the Eastern Conference Finals during the 2011 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs at TD Garden on May 23, 2011 in Boston, Massachusetts.

Elsa

Two games in a row between Boston and Tampa Bay we’ve seen one team dominate the first period of play only to get the script flipped on them and the game taken in the other direction. It happened to Boston in Game 4 and Tampa Bay last night in Game 5. With the Bruins overcoming the Lightning in Game 5 to earn a tough win, they’re in control of the series but they’ll need to stay strong to resist Tampa Bay in Game 6 in order to prevent a Game 7.

1. After such a one-sided first period that saw Tampa Bay control the play and pepper Tim Thomas with 14 shots, as opposed to four Boston shots, it looked like Thomas was going to have to break out an otherworldly kind of performance in order to help the Bruins to victory. While the pace of the game swung in Boston’s favor over the final two periods, Thomas still had to be sharp when Tampa Bay got their chances and he did so with aplomb. It’s amazing what a team can pull off when they’ve got a goaltender playing above and beyond the call of duty to help you win. The Bruins rally in the second period can be singled out on how well Thomas held it together in the first. While the Bruins have had their ups and downs, Thomas has been as steady as ever.

2. Speaking of goaltending, it appeared that Guy Boucher put himself in a hole after Mike Smith’s incredible play in Game 5. After all, you couldn’t hang the loss on Smith’s play as he allowed two goals in 19 shots leading many to believe there might be a goalie controversy heading into Game 6. Boucher put all that talk to a stop today by saying Dwayne Roloson would start Game 6.

What we won’t stop talking about here is what kept Roloson from starting Game 5. After all, Roloson was the guy who got the Lightning to the playoffs and held strong for them through the first two rounds of the playoffs, why change that up? We’ll have our own theories all the while but you have to wonder if Roloson at age 41 just maybe needed a night off. There’s some speculating that perhaps Roloson is banged up and others saying that Roloson needed a break after putting up some subpar performances in this series. If it’s an injury we’ll find out about it when Tampa Bay’s playoff run is over. If it’s not… We’ll have even more questions for Guy Boucher.

3. One guy for Boston that’s doing nothing to dispel the talk about his lack of importance is Tomas Kaberle. While Kaberle showed some signs of doing things positively (blocking shots for instance) that’s not the total role he’s there to play for the Bruins. He’s there to generate offense and lead the power play and he’s doing neither of those things, leading to some people wondering if he should be benched.

In Game 5 he had just 13:06 of ice time and 3:43 of that was spent on the power play. The 9:23 of even strength time he had was the fewest amongst Bruins defensemen by a lot and towards the end of the game Claude Julien shortened his defensive bench up excluding Kaberle from situations and opting to double up the minutes for Dennis Seidenberg and Andrew Ference.

In a time when the Bruins were hanging on to a one goal lead that makes some sense, but considering how important Kaberle was meant to be to this Bruins team, it’s a huge disappointment to see him being buried as essentially the team’s sixth defenseman. With Kaberle set to become an unrestricted free agent after this season, his marketability is shrinking dramatically in these playoffs.

4. It’s a fascinating study to see what’s going on with Tampa Bay’s Steve Downie just in this series alone. We’ve seen him wrongly get busted for diving in Game 4 and last night we saw him get questionably called for boarding Johnny Boychuk while an obvious trip by Andrew Ference on Downie went uncalled late in the game. We understand that as a player’s career goes on they can earn a bad reputation and not get the benefit of the doubt when it comes to penalties, but Downie this season has been a bit of a different player.

He’s not as abrasive as Sean Avery can be and he’s not the cheap shot artist the way Matt Cooke can be, he’s able to play with an edge and be productive as well. He’s sort of a modern day Pat Verbeek in that way but with the way he acted out early in his career in Philadelphia, he’s not getting any of the breaks. It can be tough to see from a Tampa perspective because when Downie is wronged, there’s no sympathy for him because of past aggressions. That doesn’t make it right that he’s still apparently judged by them.

5. One thing that we never counted on seeing this year is how Tampa Bay would be counting on Marc-Andre Bergeron in all their big offensive need situations. Whether it’s on the power play or late in the game with an extra attacker, Bergeron is being counted upon heavily by Guy Boucher. We know that Guy Boucher has some familiarity with Bergeron previously in his days with the Hamilton Bulldogs, but Bergeron’s been a bit of an NHL nomad existing with a big shot from the blue line and the ability to help produce on the power play. That said, seeing him on the ice in a dire situation with an empty net behind him and the desperate need to get another goal is tough to watch.

Tampa Bay doesn’t exactly have a big offensive producer on the blue line so the job basically falls to Bergeron but as we’ve seen from him in the past he’s got a penchant for turnovers. Seeing him give up the puck that led to Boston’s empty net goal to ice the game wasn’t exactly a shock. If there’s a hole in Tampa’s game it’s that they don’t have that big offensive threat on defense. Perhaps it’d be a bit different if Pavel Kubina were healthy.